Politika
- Czechoslovak Parliamentarians in Belgrade
Politika marked the arrival of a delegation of Czechoslovak parliamentarians in Belgrade with an explanatory piece about the parliament they came from. The selected passage opens with an anecdote about a German woman deputy who ostentatiously wiped her hand after shaking the Speaker's, then turns to the Slovaks, described as long opposed to the constitution but lately softening. The writer argues that Yugoslavs are uniquely placed to understand such guests, since both states faced national unification and the building of new democratic foundations. It then sets out the basics of the Czechoslovak constitution of 29 February 1920: two chambers of 300 and 150 members, age thresholds of 30 and 45 for those elected, no dual membership, and votes for women, with eight women deputies.
This edition covers one selected excerpt from the article on the Czechoslovak parliamentarians' visit. The excerpt begins in the middle of a sentence and ends at an uncertain point marked [?]. The article's opening, its remainder, the cartoon dialogue and the rest of the page are not included. The article's figure of eight women deputies has not been independently checked.
Translation
Czechoslovak Parliamentarians in Belgrade
…at the most recent verification of the elections, a German woman deputy, after shaking hands with the president of the parliament, demonstratively took out a handkerchief and wiped her hand. Besides that trouble, there are the Slovaks, who long disputed the constitution and only very recently have been changing their position in a positive spirit. Who else in the world but we can understand such guests best? And we, above all, will best understand that parliament's other problems as well, because it had similar tasks: the unification of the nation and the building of new democratic foundations for the nation's life.
The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic dates from earlier than ours, from 29 February 1920. Under it, parliament is built on a two-chamber system: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Chamber has 300 members, the Senate 150. Citizens over 30 years of age are elected to the Chamber, and those over 45 to the Senate. The same person cannot be both a deputy and a senator. In Czechoslovakia women also have the right to vote, and so there are 8 women deputies in parliament. [?]
Context
How accurate was the paper's sketch of the 1920 constitution?
The article's constitutional facts hold up well against the text of the Czechoslovak charter. The constitution was indeed adopted on 29 February 1920, some sixteen months before the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes approved its own Vidovdan Constitution on 28 June 1921, so the paper was right that the Czechoslovak document 'dates from earlier than ours'. The National Assembly was bicameral, with a 300-member Chamber of Deputies elected for six years and a 150-member Senate elected for eight. The ages of 30 and 45 that Politika gives are the minimum ages for candidates, not for voters: the franchise itself began at 21 for the lower chamber and 26 for the Senate, and it was extended to citizens of both sexes. The article's wording ('citizens over 30 are elected') is therefore correct, though a reader could mistake these thresholds for voting ages.
Why did the paper think Belgrade could 'best understand' the Slovak question?
The Slovaks whom the article describes as having 'long disputed the constitution' were chiefly the followers of Andrej Hlinka's Slovak People's Party. The party opposed centralism and 'Czechoslovakism', the official view that did not treat Slovaks as a people distinct from the Czechs, and its constitutional programme rested on the Pittsburgh Agreement, which had promised Slovakia autonomy within Czechoslovakia. A constitutional act adopted on the same day as the 1920 constitution treated Czech and Slovak as two official dialects of one 'Czechoslovak language'. That had an obvious Belgrade counterpart: the Vidovdan Constitution declared the kingdom's language to be 'Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian' and set up a unitary state on the theory of a single people made up of tribes. Hlinka's party had become the largest party in Slovakia, taking about 34 percent of the vote in the 1925 elections. The article's observation that the Slovaks were 'only very recently' changing course was borne out a few months later: on 15 January 1927 the party entered the Czechoslovak governing coalition. The comparison also had a domestic counterpart, though the excerpt does not spell it out. Stjepan Radić's Croatian Peasant Party had refused to accept the legitimacy of the Vidovdan Constitution; after the 1925 elections, offered a place in government by Nikola Pašić, it recognised the constitution. Readers in Belgrade had thus recently watched a similar reconciliation at home.
What did the mention of women deputies mean for Yugoslav readers?
The article's closing point, that Czechoslovak women voted and sat in parliament, would have read as a pointed contrast in Belgrade. The Czechoslovak constitution of 1920 gave the vote to citizens of both sexes. The Vidovdan Constitution, by contrast, withheld the vote from women. It provided for a future law to settle the question of women's suffrage, but that law was never enacted during the life of the kingdom. In the selected passage the article states the fact without arguing for reform at home, but for readers in a kingdom where women could not vote, the comparison was hard to miss.
How did Czechoslovakia's fragmented parliament actually govern?
Besides the national questions the article names, the parliament the visitors came from faced an extreme fragmentation of parties produced by proportional representation. A typical Chamber of Deputies in the First Republic contained well over ten parliamentary groups, and no single party came close to a majority. The practical answer was the Pětka ('the Five'), an informal, extra-parliamentary council of the leaders of the main coalition parties, founded in September 1920. Its members worked on the principle 'we have agreed that we will agree' and kept major disputes out of the public eye. Strict party discipline let them control their own deputies and, through them, the cabinet. The Pětka was criticised as unconstitutional and undemocratic, yet the stability of the First Republic is attributed at least in part to it. As the 1920s went on and the republic stabilised, however, the early Pětka's importance waned and its role was absorbed into the cabinet.
Original
ЧЕХОСЛОВАЧКИ ПАРЛАМЕНТАРЦИ У БЕОГРАДУ
следњој верификацији избора једна немачка жена-посланик, давши руку председнику парламента демонстратив но извадила марамицу и руку обрисала. Сем те невоље ту су Словаци, који су дуго оспоравали устав, и тек у најновије доба мењају своје становиште у позитивном духу. Ко други у свету, него ми можемо такве госте баш и најбоље да разумемо. А разумећемо баш ми и најбоље остале проблеме тога парламента јер је имао сличне задатке око унификације на рода и изградње нових демократских основа народноме животу. Устав Чехословачке Републике датира раније него наш, од 29 фебруара 1920 г. Према њему парламенат је изграђен по систему два дома: скуп штина и сенат. Скупштина броји 300 сенат 150 чланова. У скупштину се бирају грађани изнад 30 година, а у сенат изнад 45 година. Исти посланик не може да буде и посланик и сенатор. Право бирачко имају у Чехословачкој и жене, те има у парламенту 8 посланика жена. [?]